A Letter to Europe

I’m going to direct this mostly at my European readers but, of course, I expect that most of my comments will come from Americans.

My friend Rebecca Hamilton at Public Catholicthe other day made the point that the United States has been on a war footing since Pearl Harbor, she’s right, sort of, actually defense spending began in earnest in 1938 and 1939. We defeated, with help from what I’ll short form here as the British Empire: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan, to the point that even Uncle Joe Stalin gave us credit for motorizing the Red Army. We went nearly seamlessly from that conflict to the Cold War, and after a brief nap into the Global War on Terror.

I want you guys to think about this, in 1945, 14 million men were wearing the uniform of the United States Armed Forces, and our share of Gross World Product was about 50%. Got that, it’s important, in 1945 we had 14 million men in uniform and still produced half of everything made in the entire world. That’s what we built here, using your castoffs, who as we say, yearned to breathe free.

So what did we do, we forgave you what you owed us, and gave you millions more to rebuild your industries, that’s fine, we like you guys, heck, we are you guys for the most part. You were happy enough to take our money we noticed, and you built a more modern industrial base than we had, cool with us, it’s what we had in mind, to teach you to fish, so we didn’t have to keep giving you fish. It’s what we do.

You seem to like to call us an empire, well in a sense you’re right, most of our states are bigger than your kingdoms so I guess you could call us an empire but, we’re pretty benign. But you know, we would like it a lot if you’d help us defend you a bit, the Brits, and Canadians have been great, the Germans weren’t bad until 1990 or so but, the rest of you, not so much.

Something you may have missed in the news, we have found enough energy reserves in North America to be completely energy independent in about ten years, if we get busy. Energy is important to us, this is a big country built on movement. At that point the Middle East is not going to be of very much concern to us. Remember, I told you on Columbus day that the reason for Columbus’s voyage was to avoid the Middle East. What makes you think anything has changed? What are you guys going to do? Saudi Arabia? Russia?

See the thing is, we don’t really need you. We like you enough to help you out, but we are big enough especially with Canada and Central America to build our own life without regard for you. Can you say the same? We’ve been feeding you for well over a century but, we can use all that grain to run our cars as easily. China’s not really much of a threat to us, they’d rather trade than fight, Russia is a continental power, we got along fine with them before we were defending you. And in the final analysis our SSBNs and bombers work just fine.

There’s no divine law that says the US has to defend Europe. The way it looks to many of us is that you’re committing suicide anyway and Europe will be muslim by the end of the century, and a fascist dictatorship long before that. We’ve been down that road before, twice, in fact, look at the number of American soldiers buried in western Europe. I got news though, America isn’t going to do it for you, if you fight we’ll help, but if you’d rather just look down your nose at us, well, the world goes on. We’d miss the tourist season though.

See, in the last analysis, when we’ve sent those armies and air forces over there it wasn’t because we love Frenchmen, or Italians, or even the Brits, we do, but what America always fights for is liberty. If you want to throw away your freedom, well we’ve learned since 1945 that we can’t make you free, we tried with the French, the Germans, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Kuwaitis, the Afghanis, and the Iraqis. We’re getting tired of it. And we’ve got our own problems.

You see the thing is, we’ve distorted our economy, first by maintaining our military services on the scale needed for that mission of defending freedom in somewhere around 2 1/2 wars at once. The second is by emulating your welfare state which has cost us economically but also in the drive and productiveness of our citizenry.

If you’ve been paying attention the last four years you’ve noticed that we, at least a lot of us, are ready to go back to basics, in both areas. Churchill was right you know, sooner or later you run out of other peoples money, and we’re running out.

What are you going to do when the 7th United States Army leaves Germany to come home and cases its colors? Who is going to defend you then?

This was brought on by an article my friend Maggie over at Maggie’s Notebook posted this morning on what is going on in Britain lately. It’s obviously not the first I’ve seen on this subject.

I do have a word of advice for my British friends, you taught us well about freedom but, seem to have forgotten those lessons yourselves. From Thomas Jefferson:

When the peoplefear their government, there is tyranny;

When the governmentfearsthe people, there is liberty.

For centuries the nation of Great Britain prided itself on being a “Christian Nation”. A nation who has followed the Christian Faith since 600 AD. The nation went through Reformation, Reversion back to Catholicism, Revolution, Restoration, but the Christian faith remained with the people. Even today the majority of people profess to be Christian. Yet under the government, Islam has more rights, more power than any other group. Attacks on Jews have increased. Attacks on Christians have risen. Defamation of Islam is criminalized. One cannot speak out against Muhammad (MHBIH), Allah, Islam, The Koran, etc… you will jailed. Oh no? Read this:

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Something you may have missed in the news, we have found enough energy reserves in North America to be completely energy independent in about ten years, if we get busy. Energy is important to us, this is a big country built on movement.

A Reminder of Our Heritage

It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern.

But that reasoning cannot be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people.

Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

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You have a great love of history and liturgy. You’re attached to the traditions of the ancients, yet you recognize that the old world — great as it was — is passing away. You are loyal to the customs of your family, though you do not hesitate to call family members to account for their sins.